Simon Porter . . . postdoctoral researcher at Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado . . . originally from Burlington, Ontario, Canada and grew up there and in Tullahoma, Tennessee . . . received a bachelor's in physics from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and earned Ph.D. in Astrophysics from Arizona State University's School of Earth and Space Exploration . . . was a pre-doctoral fellow at Lowell Observatory . . . research focuses on orbital mechanics and impacts in the outer solar system, and the shapes, rotations, and tidal evolution of planetary satellites, especially the small satellites of Pluto, and the distant observations of Kuiper Belt objects that New Horizons is performing during its cruise through the Kuiper Belt . . . also working on accurately targeting the New Horizons spacecraft to its next flyby target, 2014 MU69, by determining MU69's orbit to unprecedented levels of precision.